Sunday, February 15, 2009

the latest

Hi, well two weeks into rehearsal for Jolson and Co and it has been the best time you can have with your clothes on. How can hard work be so much fun. We all met on the first morning, which was the first bad snow day so everyone was late, and the day was the usual polite first day of politeness. (good grammar). On the second day I commented on our director's (Ed Curtis who incidentaly is fantastic) young demeanor and asked if he had to show his ID to buy alcohol and he said he did. Donna Steele (my lovely costar) said she did as well and I retorted 'fuck off' She was laughing but she wasn't happy. So the gloves were off. Later that day as we prepared for our first on stage kiss I asked her if she was ready for it. "Well yes but I've never kissed any one as old as you before" Agh...... back of the net! Usually it takes a couple of days for those type of cutting lines to come out. I love it!!! We all have an incredible amount to learn but unbelievably by the end of the first week we did a sort of run without the script. I was amazed. I needed a lot of prompting but it was still pretty good. My other costar is Chris Howell who is amazing as well. Donna has a beautiful understudy called Louisa Maxwell who has the unenviable job of sitting learning the part as we go along but not actually rehearsing it....very difficult. Steve Arnott (who is also the stage manager) has to understudy me and Chris, even harder. We have a very tight little group already and as I like to make rehearsals fun we have a many laughs.

One more week in London and then up to Edinburgh for the tech week and our premiere at the Kings. Cant wait. Had a lot of interviews this week and I'm doing the STV 5.30 show on Monday 23rd. OK, next time I write I will no doubt be up and running and will either be deflated or ecstatic..... I'm sure it will be the latter.

PS Jane and I had dinner with my producer Michael Harrison and my favourite 'friends girlfriend' Catherine.I promised I'd mention her in my blog. She is lovely. She is a young Jane..... Jane if you read this... I mean it in a caring way. ( use Edna Everage's voice for the last line)